Lanny Kaufer

Once a month I volunteer with the U.S. Forest Service to help maintain the trails north of Ojai in Ventura County, CA. I’ve been doing this for a number of years and I always enjoy meeting people that show up for this event and spending a day with good friends.

Over the years I have had the opportunity to meet a large variety of personalities and from all different types of professions including those who are fortunate enough to be retired and have the wear with all to pick up a Maddox or a McCloud & join us on the trail for a day of frivolity.

Well, not quite. We tend to work our butts off but there is tremendous satisfaction at the end of the day, knowing that we have made a trail more passable for hikers, equestrians and and available to people that come out to enjoy wilderness for the day.

On my last event, I met Lanny Kaufer and as it turned out, he has a very interesting background in ethnobotany, the local native American culture and the use of wild herbs for ceremonies, crafts and gardening and has been leading walks and holding workshops for quite some time.

He leads walks in the local mountains to provide education for people that are interested in local plants and their uses and teaches how to identify the plants and their uses. This sounds like something I should be signing up for, sometime in the future.

He’s a very interesting guy and as we were “chugging” of the trail together, we shared a discussion of our mutual love of nature and in particular native plants…

I’m sure that I will probably be seeing him on the next Forest Service event in March but in the meanwhile you may want to take a look at his web site. It’s very well done.